Google DeepMind

Isomorphic Labs (drug discovery)

In Development

Alphabet's AI-first drug-discovery company, spun out of DeepMind in 2021 and led by Demis Hassabis. Its IsoDDE drug-design engine builds on AlphaFold 3 to design candidate molecules; it runs pharma partnerships with Eli Lilly and Novartis worth nearly $3B and is preparing its first clinical trials, starting in oncology.

Latest update Jul 17, 2026

Isomorphic Labs (drug discovery)

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Current status

IsoDDE unified drug-design engine launched February 10, 2026; first-in-human oncology trials are targeted for the end of 2026. Raised ~$600M (2025) and a ~$2.1B Series B (May 2026).

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Specifications2

First Clinical Trials
Targeted end of 2026 (oncology)
Pharma Partnerships
Eli Lilly & Novartis (~$3B)

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Upcoming milestones1

Announced next steps from Google DeepMind that mention Isomorphic Labs (drug discovery).

  1. End of 2026

    Isomorphic Labs first-in-human oncology trials

    Advance the first AI-designed drug candidates from the IsoDDE/AlphaFold pipeline into first-in-human clinical trials, beginning with oncology - a milestone Hassabis said at Davos in January 2026 had slipped from an original end-2025 target to end of 2026. As of September 14, 2026 no patient has been publicly reported dosed with an Isomorphic-designed compound; president Colin Murdoch has said the company is staffing up and getting very close to dosing patients, with the ~$2.1B Series B (May 2026) funding the preclinical work needed before an IND filing.

  1. Google DeepMind reshuffles leadership as Hassabis steps back

    Demis Hassabis stepped down as CEO of Google DeepMind on August 5, moving to Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet to focus on long-term AGI research and Isomorphic Labs. The same day, longtime Google chief scientist Jeff Dean announced he is leaving after 27 years to co-found an AI-for-science startup, Discovery Loop, alongside fellow departing Googlers Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le; Koray Kavukcuoglu becomes SVP of Google DeepMind, taking over day-to-day operations and the Gemini roadmap while reporting directly to Sundar Pichai, and Alphabet shares fell about 4% on the news.

    CNBC Axios

  2. DeepMind dismantles AlphaFold team as researchers join Anthropic

    Reports around July 29 said Google DeepMind has dismantled the dedicated team behind its Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold protein-structure system, having reassigned most of the original paper's authors over the prior year to Gemini, enzyme design, fusion, genomics and Isomorphic Labs work as the lab pivots to a Gemini-centered, agent-based structure. Several departing researchers, including 2024 Nobel laureate John Jumper, have joined Anthropic.

    Engadget The Decoder + Anthropic

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